Norman Rush - Mortals

He was on his second Ringnes beer. The brand was just lately available in Gaborone and it was wonderful, and strong, which was why he liked it, of course.

He missed Iris cruelly. She would call tonight. He was hoping for a call less consumed by the detail of what was going on with Ellen and her new baby girl than the previous calls had been.

He should be happier right now. He was set up to read and eat, a combination he liked, a pleasure in itself that a happily married man generally experienced only when he was eating away from home. He had two Times Literary Supplement s still in their glassine sleeves. He didn’t mind eating in the kitchen, despite the too-bright overhead light, because everything he might have forgotten to put on the table was close at hand.

The phone was on the table. It rang and he picked up the receiver. It was her voice. He wanted her back home. He wanted to kiss her mouth, feel her open it under his kiss. He pushed his plate aside.

“Oh God I can hear you,” he said, which was not how he had meant to begin. Somewhere he had a list of things he wanted to mention. It must be at work. There were key things on the list. The point was to attract, to attract, for want of a better word. One item was that they had fennel now, at the Chinese greengrocer’s in White City. But that was the least interesting item on the list.

She thought he was referring to the phone connection, obviously.

“I can hear you too,” she said, twice.

He wanted to do something, talk French to her, something, attract her, remind her of how much he loved her but without just saying it over and over.

“I love you,” he said.

“I do too,” she said. He knew what she meant. It was fine. He didn’t know what he wanted. He wanted something stronger.

She was proceeding with the news about the baby, still unnamed, fully recovered from the mild case of jaundice she’d suffered from when she was born. Iris was keeping Ellen as calm as possible. The baby was at home with them now. It was good that she had come. Did he have any suggestions for a name for a girl, keeping in mind that it had to go well with Gunther.

“Not right now,” he said, realizing that he wanted urgently to escape the subject. The last time he’d been engaged in baby-naming exercises was during one of Iris’s false pregnancies, long ago.

“But please help us, Ray. Think about it. You have good suggestions. Anything with a little literary feeling to it would be welcome to Ellen. She’s getting the most absurd suggestions from her friends here. I hate them. That’s another subject. I’ll tell you later. Just rebarbative is what I’d call the whole bunch of them. But there seems to be a trend going to find a name that’s got trashy associations like Lulu or Lola or Ruby. I don’t understand it. Or she’ll be enthusiastic over a name that’s just plain weird, like Merle. Of course there was Merle Oberon … But the worst is that she keeps muttering that if black people can make up any sort of name they want for their children, then why can’t she? Who knows what she might come up with. Ladeeda or Ladido or something.”

“I think the father should have some say in it, Iris.”

“The father. No.”

“I don’t understand that.”

“Ray, he knows about the baby, she told him, he just doesn’t know she’s been born yet.”

“Shouldn’t somebody inform him, Iris?”

“Of course! But this is the way Ellen wants it. He’s in another state. He got married. I don’t know how this is going to work out, but she wants me to help with an insane letter she wants him to sign. He’s getting his mail at a post office box. It’s all a mess. He works in a bookstore. He has nothing. He’s in terror of his wife finding out. He always calls, when he calls, from a pay phone. And he always whispers. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I might call your brother …”

“Now why in hell would you do that?”

“For advice .”

“What in the name of hell does he know about legal … the legal realm?”

“There’s no reason to be upset. He might know someone I could talk to. He knows amazing people. Did you read the sort of joke guidebook for returning to the States he sent me? I was going to show it to you. It turned out to be useful, really. He seems to know people in high places, gay people. The number of people you would never think of being gay that he can identify is pretty staggering. He reminds me of that diabetic woman at the embassy who named all the secret diabetics she knew about in Washington. Your brother can be very helpful.”

“Call him, then.”

“I did, once. But not to talk about this. Just to say hello.”

“How is he?”

“I think he’s all right. I couldn’t tell. He’s so funny. He has a new motto for the CIA. Do you want to know what it is?”

He was silent. If he kept silent long enough it might remind her that there was a rule. He hadn’t been able to tell her about Dictionary Echelon but he thought he impressed a general rule of caution about certain references.

She sighed. “I know what I did, Ray. I’m sorry. But don’t you want to know?”

“Okay, what is it?”

“Peek and ye shall find.”

“Very amusing.”

“Anyway these names she likes are, this is a guess, from movies we haven’t seen, with cheap women as heroines. Arva is another one she likes, and Thelma. My sister is excitable right now. I think it’s stress and postpartum and I think she’ll be better. My mother can’t come. She’s in a wheelchair with gout. Also she’s so out of it. She’s not leaving Michigan. Since she heard there’s no father on the scene or even in the wings, she really has nothing to say to Ellen. I am overwhelmed here. It would be heaven if you could be with us, but you can’t, I know that. If I didn’t give you the tourist reentry thing your brother wrote, go and look on the second shelf of my nightstand. It’s brilliant …

“Ray, I want to talk to you forever. Can we?”

“You know we can.”

“But you didn’t ask for this expense with Ellen.”

“It’s all right.” He was attracting her, which wasn’t the right word, still. He was getting something going …

“Ray, how are you, are you eating decently?”

He said, “I don’t have much appetite,” to his surprise, because it wasn’t true.

“No appetite?” she said. “Why is that? Then go eat out …”

He had committed a mistake. She felt criticized.

“You don’t want Dimakatso to cook, so okay. She is perfectly adequate. I don’t want this on me. I don’t want to hear about how only one person can feed and nurture you the right way. I’m sorry. I’ll tell you what to do if you have no appetite. Don’t eat. Don’t eat for one day . I bet your appetite might come back. Do you have any idea of the insanity I am dealing with here, a tiny infant child, my sister, her friends, do you have the slightest idea? Wait, I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Oh God. I’m marginal. Oh Ray my darling. It’s stress. Pay no attention.”

It was his fault. He had been tempted to go for sympathy by the stupid Ringnes. That was enough Ringnes. The pleasant feeling of having a little extra space in the top of the skull was declaring itself nicely. It was excellent beer, Norwegian. He liked Norwegians. Swedes he could take or leave.

“Please forgive me,” she said.

“Come on. Nothing to forgive.”

“I have so much to tell you, Ray.”

“Tell, then.”

“I think it’s good my sister had this baby. I know it’s a mess with the father, but still. They love Ellen at the Montessori Institute. The job part of her life looks solid. She likes doing publicity. They pay pretty munificently. They think she’s brilliant.